


About 3x15: Eddie Begins

by LouiseLouise



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Meta, eddie begins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23878378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouiseLouise/pseuds/LouiseLouise
Summary: My thoughts about episode 3x15 "Eddie Begins" aka I still have a lot to say for someone who felt disappointed by this episode.Originally postedon tumblr, amazing beta bynilshki. Header by me. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Relationships: Eddie Diaz/Shannon Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	About 3x15: Eddie Begins

I was considering saying just this: this felt like the most boring useless episode of the entire show and it left me only with disappointment.

Because though it’s packed with flashbacks and many supposedly suspenseful scenes, we learn next to nothing about Eddie that we haven’t already been told or shown before. Which should be the entire point of an Eddie Begins, giving us the keys to understand a character, the missing pieces of their puzzle. For me, this didn’t feel like it.

But, I still have things to say, good and bad, so here we go.

**Life and death of a marriage.**

I loved seeing Shannon again. I’ll never forgive the writers for killing her, but it was nice having her back, seeing more of her point of view. It made me wanna slap Eddie in the face even more for refusing to see that he needed to stay and be there for her and their son. 

We see her in love, when Chris is born. We watch her voice her anger when Eddie chooses to leave them again. When he leaves her deal with Christopher, before and after the CP diagnosis. We see her overwhelmed by all the responsibilities she’s left with, without having a say in it. And after 5 years of hardship, there she is, still wanting them to be a family, to build that life together, the life he promised her when Chris was born. 

The woman needs to leave to take care of her dying mother, and she offers a solution to satisfy everyone. She offers Eddie to come with her in LA, with Christopher. As a family.

There’s no indication that it would even be forever, they could’ve returned after her mother’s death. But Eddie still refuses. Once again, he makes the choice for her, without taking her opinion into account.

It’s been three months for her, waiting to go see her mother, but she doesn’t leave while he’s gone, and she doesn’t give him an ultimatum. She doesn’t make choices for their family without consulting him, the way he did. But he still doesn’t consider it. 

So I’m left wondering, what was Eddie expecting, by refusing to go to LA? I still don’t understand and I don’t understand why it’s not explored on screen.

I’m not saying he has it easy, okay? But the five years he’s been through were his choice. And when he comes back, I think he’s mostly lost, about who he can be now that he’s not a soldier anymore. He knows he’s not been a husband, or a father to his son, and his parents remind him of that, with a detail as simple as the juice box. And I think Eddie just doesn’t wanna face the fact that he’s gonna have to change, to adapt to his new life. 

I can understand his reaction. He hasn’t been raised to adapt. Still makes him a jerk though.

So Shannon finally makes a choice, for herself. She puts herself first for the first time in 5 years and honestly, good for her. I also believe that she still wants more than anything for Eddie to be a dad to Chris. She want Chris to know his father and Eddie to know his son, and at that point in their life, leaving Chris with him seems like the only way. Also, had she left with Chris, she would’ve had to take care of him _and_ her mother and I can see how hard it would’ve been. 

**Christopher needs you.**

What we see of Eddie and Chris after he joins the 118 proves that Shannon was right in leaving Chris with Eddie. He loves him, would do anything for him, though he still repeats with him some of the bad parenting skills he learned from his own parents. 

The fact that Ramon Diaz was not around when Eddie was growing up explains a lot about Eddie. We already knew that the man was raised in a “brush it off and move forward” mentality, so it makes sense that Eddie’s so obsessed with being the provider in a financial way, not in an emotional way. 

So when Eddie praises Chris for never complaining, ignoring the kid’s feelings in the way, raising him to _brush it off_ , we know he’s repeating how he was raised. He prepares him to be tough, which sure it’s important, probably even more for a kid with a disability, but feelings are vital. Addressing them is vital. We saw, with the street fighting, that Eddie’s way of dealing with feelings was unhealthy and dangerous. 

After the tsunami, Eddie takes Chris to therapy. After almost killing a man, he’s sent to therapy himself and he finally starts opening up about not wanting to repeat the patterns. But does he really change after that? He admits that game night with Buck and Chris is his kind of therapy, the same way sex with Shannon was in season two. 

It’s him avoiding facing his problems, is what it is, and I’d very much like to slap him in the face for that too. 

Christopher needs him to be in control, he says in 2x04. How about you learn to get in touch with your emotions instead?

But back to the flashbacks. So for two years between 2015 and 2018, Eddie works. He provides. And he’d probably still be doing that and still not take the time to get to know his kid if it weren’t for that **confrontation with his parents**. Which is one of the scenes I liked when I finally understood that it means he left El Paso out of spite. I love people acting out of spite. It feels real. It ignites change. The Diazs are here telling Eddie how terrible he is and how much better they are, and he just stands up and basically gives them a big fuck you, deciding to leave with Chris. Finally. Finally!

And there’s the other thing I loved. He had a choice. Chicago or LA. By choosing LA, he chooses Shannon. He finally makes the move to go to her. And yes it takes him months to get in touch, months and a school interview but still, he makes the conscious choice to get closer to her. 

And now I’m even more bitter that she was killed off, because the evolution of their relationship had so much potential. We could’ve had her learn to be a better person, a good mother. We could’ve had Eddie go through the same rage, because of the divorce, but almost lose Christopher to the street fighting, and maybe then get his shit together and address his feelings.

He’s doing better with Chris now, whether bringing him to a therapist, talking to him openly about missing Shannon, about always being a family. Okay it took him a tsunami to do that but still, progress. Progress too when he accepts to talk to Chris about limitations and possibilities. 

And his parents were still shitty, don’t get me wrong but somehow, they were kinda right because he couldn't do it on his own. Without Buck, Carla, the 118, Eddie would probably still be the father that needs three jobs to provide, who leaves him with his Abuela and doesn’t have the time to really be with him.

He couldn’t do it on his own, but the people that are in his life now are there out of love, not because they think they’re better than him. So he made the right decision in moving to LA, he became a dad along the way. Now I just want him to become a man, with his own story that doesn’t revolve around his son. _No matter how much I adore Christopher_.

**You’re in the army now.**

So we knew since 2x01 that Eddie didn’t want to talk about the SIlver Star, and he didn’t look proud of it, so obviously there was a story behind that. The fact that they went with the most boring déjà vu cliché story of _man saves his army buddies, even the dead one, and feels bad for getting rewarded for it_ is such a disappointment. The show usually does a good job avoiding clichés so I don’t understand what prompted this one.

The episode starts with Christopher and the Silver Star, which brings us to the flashbacks. So I thought they’d show us a lot more of Eddie’s time in the military, of the people with him back then, the people he saved or lost, not the ten minutes we got. Take the time to show the bonds between them, the feelings. Make us walk in his shoes when he loses one, when he almost dies. Make us feel the loss, the disappointment in himself, the reason why he doesn’t feel like a hero.

Make our hearts break the way it did for Bobby’s family, or Athena’s fiance. 

Instead we have an entire scene in the dark after the helicopter gets shot down, which reinforces the feeling of déjà vu. It’s just another war scene. Sure it tells us why he thinks he doesn’t deserve the medal. But telling is not feeling. We already knew, we needed to feel.

The medal that actually means something to him is not the Silver Star, it’s the Saint Christopher. It holds the promise he made to Shannon to come home to his family, and maybe if he can keep this promise, then he can make it right by his son. Though that’s only me assuming, not the show explaining.

**Coming home.**

So Eddie’s back home and his family is proud, which I guess is making him feel like an even bigger fraud. He did his job as a soldier, got a medal for it and now he’s reminded that it was at the expense of his family, so the medal serves as a reminder of his absence as a father, as a husband. 

He’s back in a family he hasn’t been actively part of in 5 years, he knows he’s gonna have to deal with this absence, gonna have to figure out how to be present now. It’s not something he learned, so he panics. He pushes his wife away. Again. This time he finds excuses to stay, instead of reasons to leave, but the result is the same, he’s avoiding his wife and kid.

But that, once again, is what I assume, not what the show tells us explicitly. I get that it fits Eddie keeping things to himself, but at some point the guy’s gonna have to open up and start talking.

**Did you miss me? / I’m still alive down there.**

The moment Eddie decides to leave with Chris is the big first change I see in his life. 

He’s scared no one misses him. Scared he’s not enough. Maybe because his father wasn’t there, Eddie thought as a kid he wasn’t important enough for his father to be around. And then he repeated that by not being around his wife and kid. He made himself into this person only there to pay the bills, so why would his kid miss him?

He’s surprised Chris missed him, and it changes his point of view. The same way later on Eddie’s taken aback to meet people who helps him, who genuinely like him.

He joins the 118 and discovers a new family. Finds out he doesn’t have to do it alone. That goes against everything he was taught. He didn’t expect it but he fell into it quickly, let the 118, especially Buck, into his life. So when Buck makes choices for himself with the lawsuit, it probably brought back bad memories for Eddie. Of Shannon leaving him, but him being the reason she left.

Instead of doing some introspection, and acknowledging that Buck’s story had nothing to do with him, he lashes out. At Buck. In the street fighting. He tells himself it’s for the money. Again.

He’s given a second chance by Bobby. Tries therapy. Avoids therapy. He get back up on his feet. He starts acting better with Chris though I think he's hiding behind Chris being his priority to avoid looking at his own problems, the same way he hid behind needing to pay the bills, or having guests over at his house.

And somehow he’s still scared he’s gonna be abandoned, 12 feet underground this time. 

**Stuck.**

I understand that the rescue of the kid in the well was there to have Eddie fight to come back to his family. The moment when he’s stuck underground, screaming that he’s still alive was powerful. Then he’s stuck with no oxygen, and we have that cheesy montage that only made me cry because I cannot resist a Ruelle song.

But other than that? The entire story felt pointless. We already had a connection between past and present to explain the flashbacks, with Christopher’s show and tell. We didn’t need another one. Or maybe a shorter one, with the underwater scene as a parallel to Eddie being trapped after the chopper went down. But the rest? It took time away from exploring the flashbacks more.

There was enough for two episodes in there, and Eddie deserved better than have his Begins episode intertwined with that long emergency case.

I mean, if we look closely there are four stories in there. 

Current time, with the team rescuing the kid in the well. 

Current time, with Christopher wanting to show the Silver Star to school. 

Past time, with Eddie, Shannon and Christopher’s story. 

Past time, with Eddie and his time in the military leading to receiving the Silver Star.

It’s too much action, not enough time to dive into Eddie's psyche. They could've done it in 2 eps, start with the rescue, end this episode with a cliffhanger when Eddie's underwater, which leads to an episode of just flashbacks, just like Chim getting stabbed and unconscious opened his Begins episode.

Also, there was little to no suspense. The show hasn’t killed a main character so far, and never killed a kid. Sure they could’ve started here, but it was so unlikely that I never feared for their lives.

Eddie getting himself out of the well is very fitting for his character, but this would’ve been an amazing opportunity to see him being rescued by his team, showing him that he matters, that he deserves the efforts. Maybe it could’ve made an impact on how he sees himself. Ignite some progress, you know?

The man is capable of change but he’s slow. And reluctant. That makes him an interesting character on the one condition that he continues to change, and that’s not what this episode showed. Contrary to all the previous Begins episodes, which showed us change during the episode, but also announced changes to come after the episode.

I didn’t see any hint of change to come for Eddie there. The last scene at Christopher’s school is cute, but Eddie doesn’t seem different than before being stuck down the well. So if almost dying doesn’t change him, then I don’t know what can. And I’m worried about his future in the show.

**In conclusion**

I was waiting for this Begins to understand Eddie better, and I don’t feel like I learned that much. I have more assumptions, more arguments in favor of Shannon deserving better, but Eddie? Eddie is still a mystery. And it’s frustrating. It could’ve been a good Christopher Begins, to be honest. He’s the start and finish of the episode, he’s at the center of every scene.

What I hope now, is to see some changes. I want Eddie back in therapy. I want him to admit his mistakes, and apologize to Buck for lashing out on him, for letting him take the blame for not being here for Eddie when Eddie wasn’t there for Buck either. 

I want to see that remembering he has a family to come back to will push him to seek help. 

I don't think there's anything to redeem his terrible parenting choices before he leaves El Paso, but there’s still ways for him to be a better man, and I really hope the show gives us that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this not-fic!  
> Like always, I welcome every kudo, emoji and comment ♥ I'm starting to catch up on replying to comments, it's slow but I read them all and I'm gonna do my best to continue replying.  
> Just keep in mind that I try to avoid spoilers for upcoming episodes as much as I can, if you decide to comment!


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